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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27583958">smile all night at somebody new</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayleavestars/pseuds/mayleavestars'>mayleavestars</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Homestuck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon compliant - Homestuck credits, Character Study, Earth C (Homestuck), F/F, Post-Canon, ambiguous future jadedavekat unfortunately, in other words this takes place before the epilogues so compliance is audience determined, schrödinger's canon compliance - the homestuck epilogues, terezi pyrope's beta kids speedrun (dave don't interact), this ship is epilogues canon jaderezi truthers rise up</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 04:03:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,352</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27583958</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayleavestars/pseuds/mayleavestars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You are not stupid! A boy in funny yellow shorts is not the same person as a dead grandfather; an alternate-universe brother is not the same as a brother who never died; a planet being called Earth does not make it Earth. Identical names and origins and genetic codes do not make replacements, and a deliberately curated ever-expanding social circle does not erase three years alone.</p><p>(Black hair against a night sky and a girl’s relentless forward drive towards a betterment she has to believe in do not replace –)</p><p>You are not stupid. </p><p>-</p><p>The Witch of Space, the Seer of Mind, and a rooftop in the Troll Kingdom.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jade Harley/Terezi Pyrope, Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket (Past)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>smile all night at somebody new</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i felt miserable today so i dealt with this by writing sad earth c jaderezi in the 24 hour study center </p><p>title from 'i don't want to get over you' by the magnetic fields but jade very much IS bright so ignore that part of the lyrics if you know the song</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Night has settled across the rooftops of the Troll Kingdom. Time of day, of course, means little to you here, both in the sense that it is entirely divorced from whatever nighttime may or may not have meant on another planet, and in the sense that nobody is asleep. You, in fact, are not sure your sleep cycles will ever depend on anything at all. A remnant from the meteor. </p><p>The trolls moving in the streets below you are barely audible from the roof of your stupidly expensive hivestem complex. The only senses that float up to your nose are the honey lights of their hives and the uninspiring blueberry jam of the sky. </p><p>The faint stars you make out in it if you sniff closely are not familiar to you, and the delicious color-filter lights of the pink and green moons are notably missing. There are no grounds for you to imagine that light spilling across this city, the soft smell of cotton-candy and lime it would conjure. It is not a light this planet has ever known.</p><p>Your palmhusk has been beeping steadily for the last ten minutes. If it was most people, you’d have gotten away with ignoring it; this is a well-cultivated habit of yours. Curiosity overtakes you, though, when you catch a whiff of the text color. Lime-green. Green Sun green.</p><p>For the first time in a week.</p><p class="jade"><b>GG: hi, terezi</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: its been a while! </b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: and i wanted to tell you that on some level i understand where you were coming from the other night</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: like for fuck’s sake if there’s anyone out there who understands feeling uniquely lonely, its me!!!!</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: but i guess thats why i wanted to tell you im still mad at you</b><b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: thats not a thing thats stopped being true or anything</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: because walking around acting like you are the only person here who has lost something is just…</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: fucking unfair!</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: to all of us</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: but to me especially </b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: i tell you things sometimes because i know youll understand </b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: and even if the only way you ever react is making slightly off color jokes then i still appreciate it because its better than being pitied or than telling something to someone who i know isn’t going to get it </b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: but for FUCK’S sake i cant stand being avoided!!!</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: and if you let me tell things about myself and then all you say about YOURSELF is idk </b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: little concerning tidbits </b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: that you just expect me to ignore!</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: that’s just fucking unfair to me :/</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: i don’t expect you to tell me everything that’s not something im ever gonna ask of you or of anyone </b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: but it just makes me sad and frankly kind of angry too!</b></p><p>You put down the palmhusk. Back up for a moment. </p><p>Your name is Terezi Pyrope, and ‘nice’ does not suit you. The term is, in fact, probably close to the bottom of a list of potential descriptors anyone would choose to apply to you. This trait is not unique to you! You share it with Rose, Vriska, and frankly with half the people you know. So you don’t know why, when the dust settles, the hours that Jade Harley does not spend with the inseparable entity known as Daveandkarkat, she chooses to spend hours at a time expecting niceness from <em> you</em>.</p><p>“You’re Terezi, right?” she’d asked you on the victory platform, bright and open with the knowledge that she was carrying the center of a new universe in her hands. When she set it free, you weren’t fucking stupid; you always would have noticed she was beautiful. In her hands, the garish lime scent of the Green Sun became something tameable; the licorice billows of her hair became as vast as the space of the Furthest Ring, which is something that, against all odds, you had begun to miss. </p><p>So you’d seen her a few times. So it was easier to face her than Karkat and Kanaya, who were invested fundamentally in their all-consuming meteor relationships. And so she’d taken you up to the mountains of the new Earth, where you listened to unfamiliar wind in unfamiliar leaves; and she’d come with you to troll kingdom celebrations, ones you had almost as little cultural background for as she did, and walked with you through its streets and attentively asked questions about Alternia that you’d felt almost okay about answering. </p><p>She is probably someone who deserves a text response from you. </p><p>She is probably not going to like it. </p><p>
  <span class="terezi"> <b>GC: H1 J4D3</b> <b><br/>
</b><span class="jade"> <b>GG: oh!</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: hi</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: um</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: you dont have to read all that</b> <b><br/>
</b></span><span class="terezi"> <b>GC: 1 DONT S4Y TH1S OFT3N SO L1ST3N UP</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GC: 1 4M SORRY</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GC: NOT N3C3SS4R1LY FOR 4NYTH1NG 1 D1D BUT 1F 1 G4V3 YOU TH3 WRONG 1MPRESS1ON OF TH3 K1ND OF TROLL TH4T 1 4M</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>CG: TH1S H3R3 1S 4BOUT TH3 N1C3ST YOU’R3 GONNA G3T</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GC: 1 FR4NKLY W4S NOT M4D3 FOR F33L1NGS J4MS</b> <b><br/>
</b></span><span class="jade"> GG: thats bullshit! thats not an apology!<br/>
GG: you arent inherently anything and you definitely arent inherently unhappy or inherently predisposed to hurting people who care about you!!!<br/>
GG: because i know you are unhappy right now and i know that getting sincerity out of you is like pulling teeth but<br/>
GG: you had a moirail im not stupid i know what that entails </span> <span class="terezi"><br/>
<b>GC: 1 W4S MO1R41LS W1TH VR1SK4</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GC: SO DO YOU 4CTU4LLY TH1NK YOU KNOW?</b> <b><br/>
</b></span><span class="jade"> <b>GG: i know you were happy!!</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: happier than you are now :/</b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: look... </b> <b><br/>
</b> <b>GG: are you in the troll kingdom?</b> </span></span>
</p><p>Lying to her is undeniably tempting. Also, probably not tenable. Where the fuck are you, ever, if not in the troll kingdom? You could tell her not to come over, but an argument doesn’t sound so bad at this point. Lately (who are you kidding, almost ever since you landed on this planet) you have been shaking with a sort of pent-up internal tension; the knowledge that you’d like to be an <em> asshole </em>to someone and hear them be an asshole back. A buzzing energy you don’t know how to direct.</p><p>
  <span class="terezi">GC: Y34H</span><br/>
<span class="terezi">GC: TOP OF MY ROOF</span><br/>
<span class="jade">GG: calculated for peak anxiety, got it</span>
</p><p>It must be a nice night for flying, or maybe she’s just feeling considerate enough right now to give you a few minutes to prepare. You know this because, instead of materializing in a sneeze-inducing burst of green light, she lands lightly on the top of your roof, as if she’s been carried there by the wind. She’s wearing a billowing dusty-rose dress today, turned a muted raspberry smell in the dark. Her hair, as ever, settles around her in loose waves. You wonder if she knows you envy her capacity for effective entrances.</p><p>“Getting out of the apartment was nice, anyway,” says Jade, as if she isn’t pissed at you. As if this is a nice date the two of you have arranged. “Karkat and Dave’s capacity to avoid going outside never ceases to amaze me.” </p><p>“They’re watching another one of Earth C’s gifts to film, I assume.” </p><p>The fond annoyance in Jade’s voice vanishes instantly, replaced with genuine annoyance. “It’s not so bad to find out what a new world has to offer you,” she says. </p><p>“I always love it when you’re an asshole,” you say with full sincerity. </p><p>She elects to ignore this; walks to the edge of the roof and sits down next to you, swinging her legs over the edge like you have and peering down into the streets below. “Nice night,” she says, as if determined not to acknowledge your observation. </p><p>For a long moment the two of you sit in silence, sitting on the edge of darkness, watching (or sniffing at) the lights below you rather than each other. Beneath the raspberry dress, she smells like she always does; Earth sunlight, new grass, spring earth. (Earth on earth, or earth on Earth. Earth C specifically; you’ve never been to the other ones. You’ve never bothered to sniff too closely at Alternian dirt, either.) </p><p>“If I recall correctly, you were going to tear into me,” you tell her eventually. “Come on.” </p><p>“Yeah, well, I spent ten minutes outside and now I’m not sure I’m in the mood,” she says. Unreadable, which is always a little bit fun. It makes for a good challenge. </p><p>“You can’t just get me excited like that for nothing.” </p><p>Another silence. It’s a nearly windless night, but it’s always windy up here to a point, and you can picture, you think, the movement of her hair where it frames her face. At last, she says, “You’re a bit like Rose, you know.” </p><p>“Seers,” you say, as if to demonstrate something obvious. </p><p>“No, not <em> seers</em>.” It’s good to have finally been able to annoy her again. “Forget seers, Sburb’s over, who cares about categorizing people that way.” </p><p>When you’ve been silent for long enough, Jade sighs. “You’re just proving my point, see? Instead of – asking ‘so what is it I have in common with Rose’, like a normal person, you just sit there and wait for me to tell you, as if you’re above engaging in a conversation without throwing in a stupid mind game or two. And both of you treat – or at least treated, in her case – me like I’m stupid sometimes, even knowing I’m not, just because I’m trying not to be unhappy.” </p><p>“Then you would say it takes trying.” </p><p>“<em>Obviously </em>it takes trying,” she snaps. “It takes trying for everyone, Terezi, that’s the point. And I don’t see why you’re not. Karkat says he hasn’t seen you in months.” </p><p>“To your own admission, Karkat does not go outside.” A pause. “And trust me when I say I’d call you stupid more often if I thought you were stupid.” </p><p>“Never said you thought so. I said you treated me like you did.” </p><p>“Then we return to my original argument. Being angry at me for the person I am is acceptable if it entertains you! But you’re not allowed to be surprised about it.” </p><p>Far below you, a burst of delighted laughter carries up from the streets. If you listen very, very closely, you can hear music playing from the higher-up blocks. </p><p>Jade sighs again. “Terezi,” she asks at last, “what are you waiting for?” </p><p>“Nothing,” you lie. </p><p>“Because if it’s for –” </p><p>“Don’t.” </p><p>“If it’s for Vriska –” </p><p>“That’s not your business, Harley.” Your voice has turned from funny-harsh to unfunny-harsh in a few moments. </p><p>“Then whatever change you’re waiting for, she’s not gonna bring it about. You only think she can, but if you’re fucking determined to be unhappy, attaining something isn’t gonna fix that. Changing is. Believing in change is. Doing the work is, like the rest of us are doing.” </p><p>There are lots of nasty things you can say in response. You settle for what might be the nastiest, which is, “You mean like the work you’re putting into getting included in Dave and Karkat’s whole deal?” </p><p>An intake of breath. Then, “Yeah. Exactly like that.” </p><p>“And you think it’ll help?” you ask. </p><p>“I’m trying things!” Jade’s breathing is a touch too steady for the steadiness to be sincere. “That’s the <em>point</em>, Terezi. I know it might not work. I know it might all spiral embarrassingly out of control, and I know I might have to quit it if they tell me to, and try to think of something else, but the point is that I’m trying! Because the worst thing I can do after the last seventeen years of my life is sit back and let myself be miserable just because that’s the easiest option.” </p><p>Now she’s breathing hard. Now she smells sharp, like a too-cold night, which blends into the too-cold night the two of you are situated in the midst of. Nothing but buildings that mean nothing to you and fields and trees that mean nothing to you, a sky that certainly means nothing to you. Ones that could mean something to you if you tried, perhaps. But Jade Harley is right after all. You don’t want to.</p><p>“I don’t know why you think I’m unhappy,” you say. </p><p>“Geez, Terezi, I don’t know. A brain? Critical thinking skills?” </p><p>“Fine! I’ve been known to have a problem or two. I’ve been known to be, at times, not fully satisfied with the trajectory of my life. And how I solve any of this, and at which pace, is none of your business.” </p><p>“I know it’s not,” says Jade. “But you happen to choose to share your opinion about things that are none of your business all the time, so I’m not sure what the big deal is about me doing the same.” </p><p>“I think,” you say, “that you like me because you can say things like that to me. I am not so consequential that you can’t tell me exactly what you think of me in the exact terms you want to express it.” You grin at her, imagining the multicolored lights of below glinting off sharp white teeth. “And that in turn makes me consequential.” </p><p>“I’m not going to call you unkind,” says Jade. “I’ve seen how that goes.” </p><p>A tilt of the head and a shrug. As if you’re saying, <em> I won’t change for you, sorry</em>. This is a cruel thing to do, because it is not as if she asked you to do so. But what’s new.</p><p>“But I think I'll say that you're afraid.” </p><p>You let the silence go on for long enough for her to think (know?) she has made you angry. Then you say, “Jade, what is the name of the planet we are on?” </p><p>“Earth C. What are you setting up for?” </p><p>“Earth C,” you repeat. “You held it in the palm of your hand! You set it free into a pretty-looking solar system, and then we let everyone loose on it and hopped into the future and hoped it would all work out via the society-building of an adorable carapacian.” </p><p>“Yes.” </p><p>“We are not on Alternia C, Jade.” </p><p>Your voice doesn’t choke when you say this, but it might be a near thing. Jade might be smart enough to hear everything that you are not saying: that there were no convenient replacements for what you’ve lost waiting for you in any kind of new universe; that there were no revivals and no copied planets; no alternate mothers and no second chances and no remade universes. </p><p>You miss Rose, a little, because she would have said one of several cutting remarks that you would have enjoyed answering. “And what would you have done on Alternia C,” she <em> could </em>have said, if she’d felt particularly cruel, “fulfilled your dream of being a government-sanctioned murder lawyer?” And you would have said that at least you would have had a past dream to reckon with and decide what to do with, a cut-off legacy to determine the fate of, instead of blank, boring nothingness. </p><p>Or she would have pointed out what you’re not so stupid that you don’t know, what Jade must be thinking right now when she says, “We’re not. I’m sorry. But we’re not on Earth, either.” </p><p>Again: you are not stupid! A boy in funny yellow shorts is not the same person as a dead grandfather; an alternate-universe brother is not the same as a brother who never died; a planet being called Earth does not make it Earth. Identical names and origins and genetic codes do not make replacements, and a deliberately curated ever-expanding social circle does not erase three years alone.</p><p>(Black hair against a night sky and a girl’s relentless forward drive towards a betterment she <em> has </em> to believe in do not replace –)</p><p>You are not stupid. </p><p>“A pale imitation is better than loss,” you say. </p><p>She laughs; when you think she’s about to stop, she keeps laughing. Finally she looks directly at you. The Green Sun color of her eyes burns through your smell-sense.</p><p>“Is it really, Terezi?” she asks. </p><p>“A flawed second chance is better than no chance at all,” you add. </p><p>At that she sighs, as if she’s conceding something. “Maybe,” she says. “Ugh, what am I saying, of course you’re right about – about Jake, and John, getting them back. Obviously that’s better. But – but I don’t know.” Her voice softens; she leans forward to watch the streets below more intently. “Everything the world puts you through – you try to face it or you let yourself be miserable. And you can’t be happy if you’re not giving the world a chance. Even if it’s so unfamiliar it terrifies you! Even if you feel like the only person clued in on the rules! Because everything runs on random chance, even if it feels like it’s orchestrated specifically to make you miserable, everything’s just part of a bigger picture we can’t see. You can’t control – the movements of the stars, or the spin of the earth, not unless you’re <em>me</em>, and even if you’re me it doesn’t help. So control what you <em> can</em>, because there’s still stuff worth waiting for!” </p><p>She’s breathing hard when she finishes. For a bizarre moment (not the first bizarre moment) she is a kind of reverse-Vriska. It is not as if the thought of Vriska’s reaction to your willing stasis has not crossed your thoughts before. It is not as if you don’t <em> know </em>that were she here, she would carve out a place for herself, fuck the circumstances and fuck the story and fuck whatever stands in her way. </p><p>You are not Vriska, and you are not Jade, either. Your pusher is slowing down from whatever semi-confrontation the two of you have induced in each other. Because it’s been a weird night, you say, “You know, she would have liked you. Eventually.” </p><p>“I would have probably liked her, too,” says Jade. “Eventually. Though an apology for the life of artificially-induced narcolepsy wouldn’t have hurt.” </p><p>“Vriska apologizes for stuff,” you say. You note you’ve switched to the present tense, and don’t know what that means. </p><p>“And you don’t. Not really.” </p><p>“This is correct,” you say, and then she leans into your shoulder anyway, even though she’s taller than you. You don’t know where the kind of quasi-peace the two of you have achieved has come from, but the presence of her is warm and familiar and you cannot bring yourself to resent it. You resent yourself, if anything; for the fact that a you that listens to her words, that surrenders to her in any way, would be a you that’s not you anymore. </p><p>You take her down the stairs; she opens the window wide to let in faint light and sound, breathes in the night air with obvious delight. The two of you forgive each other, because you’re lonely and because you must. For not surrendering, because you’ve only surrendered once. For asking for something like surrender, without knowing what it means. </p><p>Later, once you’ve left the planet altogether, you will wish you’d told her that if she wanted to believe in her own happiness this much, she shouldn’t have stacked her deck so firmly in the direction of Dave and Karkat. Later, you will know (See, perhaps) that she had wanted to ask you: are you looking, or are you just leaving? They’re not the same thing. Which part is the motivating factor? </p><p>Later, surrounded once more with the void of space, by the sharp scents of its iridescent fallings-apart, you will pause in the midst of imagining a reunion with Vriska and ask yourself what a rooftop Jade in your head would ask. </p><p>“What will you do if you find her?” </p><p>And the underlying question: “If you find her, won’t you still be scared of coming back?” </p><p>In the meantime, you let the wind and the faint sounds of the city trickle in through the window, picture the shapes of a quasi-Alternian architecture across the skyline. If you imagine that a cloud has blocked out both moons, it almost functions as a pale imitation. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>on twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/chronotopics">chronotopics</a> :3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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